Surrender
by Widu
Summary: Gaelen Hawke and Anders have fled Kirkwall only to land themselves in yet another desperate bind. "I told you I would break your heart." This time it may be the other way around. Full supporting cast of qunari.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Yes, this is fan fiction. The setting and most of the characters belong to Bioware, except for the ones who are mine and big scary lawyers lurk in the Fade if anyone tries to make money from this stuff and so on and so on.

This is set not too long after the events of Dragon Age II. Feynriel is mentioned, if not by name, and if you look closely you can spot Sten as well.

* * *

><p><strong>Surrender<strong>

Twining through the ugly melody of the harsh qunari language, Gaelen Hawke can hear birdsong and the rustling of the wind through the treetops. He thinks he can smell thyme. He tries to concentrate on that rather than the sun beating down relentlessly, turning his skin red and raw even though it must be late in the afternoon by now.

_Birds. Leaves. Thyme. _And, damn them all to the Black City and back, the deep voice of the bronze-skinned giant readying the Champion of Kirkwall for the Qun. He has seen him – when he could still see, that is – a big, armoured bastard with violet eyes and no sign of horns. He recalls Fenris mentioning that qunari born without horns are special, meant for some important religious or emissary role. _Damn them all._

Several years ago, the defeat of the would-be conquerors of Kirkwall and their Arishok had gained Hawke his title, but after they left Kirkwall he and Anders, now the most hunted mage this side of the Free Marches, had hardly given the qunari any thought. But then these 'Beresaad', as they called themselves, showed up looking for the Champion, as dogged as only qunari could be, and what with respectively the Chantry, the Seekers, the Templars and Andraste knows who else out to hang him and Anders from the highest tree, Hawke didn't need a pack of qunari bloodhounds hot on their heels.

As far as he knew, the only way to get qunari off your back was to give them what they wanted. Answers were what these Beresaad were after, at least according to Varric's note, not revenge, nor punishment. Hawke vaguely wondered if this expedition of theirs was to provide their religion with a new tome sporting a picture of Gaelen Hawke and a manual of operation. _Avoid approaching with overly large ugly swords_, that sort of thing.

He told them the full story with much less flourish than Varric would have done, including his duel with the Arishok. Still quite the tavern tale, he has heard versions of it that make him shake his head in disbelief, or in some notable cases, cover his face with his palm in despair. The first time someone insisted he beat the qunari leader in a fistfight, he intervened: "No, it wasn't barehanded, but yes, it was single combat. Yes, I did beat him and afterwards spent two weeks being hospitalized." No one ever listed that.

The qunari listened patiently and then decided the best course of action was to have this Champion of Kirkwall submit to the Qun. Because of that damned title – where a Champion goes, many of his people are bound to follow – but also, paradoxically enough, because of his adamant refusal to surrender his freedom. Hawke has never been much good at surrender. This face, his face, is in a manner of speaking on the other side of the qunari coin, and they have responded by deciding not to waste him.

Fighting his way out would be suicide, and the only compromise he's achieved is Anders. The qunari have little experience with mages who are not bound and broken, but if they pull off any of that Hawke has made very clear he will die on his feet instead of kneeling to their blighted Qun. He has also tactfully refrained from mentioning his friendship with a Dreamer mage most recently from Tevinter who can hopefully help his lover master the vengeful spirit inside of him. Somehow he doubts that would go down well.

If anything the qunari are all about choice. He's wearing chains, but his weapons are close at hand; a fighting man's blade is his soul, In addition to the chains he's been ordered to keep a strip of cloth over his eyes 'until he can see properly.' It would be easy enough to free himself, but there might be a chance they'll remove his eyesight in a more permanent fashion. So far, he has chosen both captivity and blindness.

"You have duelled the Arishok for the sake of a thief," the qunari states levelly. _Birdsong. Thyme. _Hawke licks his dry lips. Qunari courting must be the most terrible in all of Thedas, he reflects wryly, although Fenris did say they do not so much court as have a mating schedule. Of course.

"Why did you fight for the thief?" the deep voice asks sternly.

"Isabela." Hawke tastes the name as he would a good wine, though he's still thirsty and his throat feels parched. Using names, a decidedly un-qunari practice, is a secret pleasure.

"Why were you willing to die for the thief instead of her submitting to the Qun?" the hornless qunari presses.

"Isabela is a friend," he replies. "A friend who happens to be not so willing to submit to anything." He smiles and briefly, regretfully, wonders what Isabela is doing. Or knowing Isabela, who she is doing.

"You speak as if this friendship with the thief gave you strength."

"It does. It did."

"And your... bond with the mage?"

His voice too is now cracked and dry, but still steady. Or so he hopes. _The rustle of leaves. _

"You derive strength from it?"

"Yes." He's tempted to say 'I also like to nibble his ears' and wait for the reaction. It's either that, or say something equally stupid, or break down, and that doesn't seem particularly appealing.

Another unbidden memory.

_That first nightly visit despite Anders' warnings that he'd break his heart. They eventually landed on his bed. Swept up in a rush of familiar desire and unfamiliar bewilderment, he looked up at Anders, his thick black hair now a tangled mess. "You do know that I never-" he began, and gave up. He was never any good at surrender, not even to his own apprehension. "_A pretty girl, a decent meal and the right to shoot lightning at fools_. How exactly do I qualify as a 'pretty girl'?"_

_A genuinely suprised smile lit up the mage's hazel eyes. "You're deflecting!"_

"_Oh yes."_

"_Not a single oneliner," Anders murmured, "amazing." He ran his sensitive hands over Hawke's shoulders, down his back."No need to worry," he whispered. "We'll be fine." Hawke could feel the smile widen wickedly. "You'll just need to let me have my way with you." _

_Gaelen Hawke closed his eyes, and surrendered._

The severe qunari voice forces him back into the present. Hawke can almost hear the frown of disapproval. "You speak of strength, yet he has also wounded you. You are wounded still. Suffering of the self brings suffering into the world, Champion."

"I'll try to suffer less, thanks."

Sensing this discussion is at an end, the qunari rises to his feet and leaves Hawke to his blindness and his sorrow. Praised as he is by his men for his knowledge of these people, he will never fully understand them.

* * *

><p>Anders' makeshift prison is a tent where the qunari keep their provisions. His hands have been roughly tied behind his back. <em>Captured. Again. <em>The time he met this with a carefree, laid-back attitude has well and throughly ended. It didn't change after his seventh escape from the Fereldan Circle of Magi, when they dragged him back to spend the better part of a year in solitary confinement. It changed when _he_ changed, when he merged with a spirit from the Fade.

He has always chafed under Chantry rule, but now the easy temper that kept him safe from execution and made him more of a Circle legend than a true menace is gone. The man who swam Lake Calenhad. What would the First Enchanter make of him now? Best not think of it.

The magic churns within him. It turns him lightheaded with anticipation when a spark of it sears through the ropes around his wrists. The qunari guards are stunned when the tent suddenly catches fire, until they are swept off their feet by a blast of invisible energy and the hungry flames leap onto them in an instant.

On the other side of the camp Gaelen Hawke lightly lands on his feet, throws off the blindfold and brings up his crescent blade and the slender curved one. The chains part like silk before the enchanted metal. Before they fall to the ground Hawke is already on his first qunari, and despite the the qunari numbers and their skill at arms he fights magnificently.

Anders has only seen him fight like this once before, back in Kirkwall. Hawke cuts tendons, severs arteries and moves like a rushing river, his every move fluid and graceful and utterly ruthless. He dodges massive sweeping strikes and manages to turn those that do catch him into glancing blows. Most of them.

For a blood-drenched stretch it looks as if they might make it out alive, but Hawke's endurance is not endless. It simply takes too much to fight them all off, every single one of them stronger than he is, their reach larger. He knows how to battle opponents like that, but he also knows all too well those tactics take time, and space, and energy. He can't hold out forever, not like this.

The space between attack and sidestep shortens to a hair's breadth, sometimes even less. His parries become more ponderous. Blood is dripping into his eye from a gash on the left side of his forehead. It doesn't take long before he's limping and quick feints and flashy kicks are no longer an option.

Anders is struck dumb with amazement at seeing all the fallen qunari, but he is also losing his focus. It's too hard to keep his fragile balance between fending off a particularly persistent axe-wielding warrior, maintaining his protective glyphs, channeling healing energies and – most important of all – restraining the spirit of Justice, or Vengeance, before the camp reduced to embers.

Suddenly one of his paralyzing wards collapses. Blast it, he has to renew it before – A soldier with vivid, blazing orange eyes towers behind him and grabs a handfull of the mage's hair. The triangular blade of the qunari's spiked dagger bites deep; it would have nearly decapitated him if he hadn't escaped the qunari's grasp by slipping free of the little band that ties back part of his hair. Anders hits the ground hard. He is dimly aware of the blood streaming down his neck, soaking his coat and leaking into his shirt. The glyphs are failing.

Through a mist of pain he hears Gaelen's scream of rage. The qunari facing the Champion of Kirkwall is done for. His big hand has so far kept his insides from slipping out, but when Hawke's attention is diverted for just a heartbeat, the qunari grips his sword with both hands. With injury and fatigue slowing him down Hawke's attempt to dodge isn't fast enough. All of the qunari's dying strength spills out into a single fatal blow. When the vicious two-handed sword runs him through, Gaelen Hawke makes just a small, strangled sound.

Anders lets go of his tenuous hold on the spirit that is now furious and howling inside of him, hungry for revenge. A roaring ball of fire crackling with blue and white lightning unleashes itself to consume the last qunari standing. Time comes to a standstill.


	2. Chapter 2

_Anders opens his eyes. An elven woman is carefully wiping the cold sweat from his brow with a cool rag. She's a small, lively thing with pretty emerald eyes. He gives her his most charming, inviting smile - and then notices the man beside her, who raises a single eyebrow. He turns out friendly enough though, easy-going with a playful streak. Alistair is his name, and the woman is the Grey Warden hero of Ferelden. _

_This is the night after his Joining. He remembers thudding to the carpet after drinking the darkspawn blood, and the visions... sweet Andraste, the visions. He shudders. The pair of them arrived soon after, and Alistair thankfully, if rather unceremoniously, carried him to this bunk. They tell Anders what it means to be a Warden. They kindly watch the injustice of it sink in, impart their sympathies as the rage within him grows to a ravaging storm. _

_If he'd been allowed to remain with them, perhaps he would not have left the Wardens. Or would he? _

_This so-called hero and her Templar lover, compassionate, sympathetic, and _leaving._ They have more important things to do. Suddenly, he wants nothing more than to lash out, to tear them both apart and revel in the spray of their tainted blood. He can see his eyes, glowing with blue fire, reflected in Alistair's breastplate as he feels himself falling to the raging firestorm within._

"_Is this... a mage thing?" he hears the man Alistair ask slowly. The former Templar doesn't await the answer and slides his useless sword free of its scabbard. Anders sweeps towards him, stretches out a talonlike hand and plunges it into the man's chest. It burns through red gold and dragonbone, through muscle and flesh until he rips out the bastard's black heart and turns it to ash in his palm. _

_His wild screams join hers as a wave of flame washes over her, her silverite armour, her delicately pointed ears and agonized face..._

NO.

That's not what happened.

Anders blinks as the images dissolve. He had not even met Justice the night after his Joining, and it was certainly long before he'd allowed the spirit to share his body. Neither of them had been corrupted by Vengeance. After the ritual he'd been weak as a kitten; she'd squeezed his hand, and Alistair had with a conspiratory wink left him a jug of ale before they went on their way. The next day he'd become royally drunk.

This is not the past. This is the Fade, realm of dreams. There is a flickering presence on the edge of his vision. Shadowy, shapeless, threatening, it has been there throughout the whole gruesome scene, just out of sight, but Anders knows it was there, even if he can't look at it directly. Is that what has distorted the dream?

More darkness.

_Tremors. A ruby ray of devastating, implacable magic tears through the heart of the Chantry into the heavens accompanied by cries of pain and fear. His magic, his doing. The building bathes in its red glow for a few moments as it slowly comes apart. Pieces of debris swirl around it in silent foreboding while terrible power thrums through it._

_Then the blinding explosion, the shockwave. And the faces. This is a familiar dream. An endless sequence of faces lit by a red radiance, their features stricken by terror and anguish. A few Templars. Priests. The elderly Grand Cleric. A middle-aged woman lovingly caring for some altar or other. An orphaned child. A troubled young lay sister seeking refuge. He sees them, and feels them die._

His heart is racing and his chest aches, but this time there is no one to keep the nightmares at bay. This time he won't wake up to Gaelen's touch soothing him with that steadfast love of his that is so alien to any spirit. There is a fair chance he will not wake up at all.

_At the edge of vision, a dark, malevolent shadow lingers. _

The dream changes again to look more like the raw Fade where every outline is vague and the dispersing light comes from everywhere at once. The ground is a liquified grey. On it is Hawke's silent body, locked in time, surrounded by a pool of blood.

The dark, evasive presence materializes a few paces away. It has no true shape of its own and is very, very difficult to look at. Small swirls of darkness emanate from its skewed appearance like smoke that dissolves into nothing. It stares directly into Anders' soul with pupilless, pearly eyes that glow a faint blue.

Well, he's still a mage, damn it. He will pull himself together and act like one. "Are you Vengeance?" he asks. With nothing to rebound from, the sound of his voice is strangely dampened.

The apparition doesn't speak; the words simply come into being. _Yes and no. I am part of this dream. All of it, all of me is of your own making. All of it is your dream. _

"What are you doing here? What am I doing here?"

_You are dying. _

"Can't I do that in peace?"

The presence shifts. _You are no longer fully mortal. A choice shall be given._

Anders glances towards the still, intimately familiar body. He winces as it's suddenly moved to be held in place on its knees, eyes closed, impaled by the qunari sword as before. It's a small mercy that only mages retain their consciousness in the Fade, but hardly a consolation.

_He is dying and so are you. It is within the power of this place to save one of you. _

Anders breathes out in relief. "If I pay for it with my life, then I pay." He'd said that after the destruction of the Chantry, when he sat there waiting, even welcoming the Champion's blade in his back, although he couldn't bear to face him and see that heartrending look of grief.

"He stayed with me, kept me from losing myself. Heal him."

_That is your final answer?_

"Just do it."

Suddenly the apparition expands without a warning, engulfing everything for a moment before collapsing back into itself.

_You have chosen. You are healed and whole. Gaelen Hawke will die._

Fear lances through Anders when he realizes his mistake. He's been had. "_All of this, all of me is of your own making._" That's just it, isn't it? He has used that trick himself in the Fade time and again.

"No!" The useless cry wrings itself from his lips and he barely recognizes it as his own. "He has done nothing wrong! He doesn't deserve this!"

The ethereal eyes watch him impassively. _It is what _you_ deserve, isn't it? You of all should understand that the punishment does not always fit the crime._

Fiery blue cracks seem to open up all over his body, but Anders forces the glow to die down with no more than a snarl. Instead he kneels before what remains of the man he loves a lot more than his broken life.

He smoothes back the sweaty black hair, wishing he could look into those golden-brown Hawke eyes and ask for their forgiveness. The face is just a blur of tears. He puts his arms around his lover as if it were just another night of easy companionship and time to go to sleep. He reaches for the qunari sword. Yes, there it is. He grabs hold of the hilt so tightly his fingers whiten.

_Hold! What do you think you are doing? _

"He will not go alone. If I live, I'll save him. If I die, then I die."

_This is _your_ dream. You might end up making yourself Tranquil!_

Anders watches his hands tremble only slightly at that. "That was my greatest fear," he says softly. "It seems I was wrong once again."

With all of his strength he violently pulls the blade into his own body.

* * *

><p>The song of birds. The smell of thyme, mixed with the coppery scent of blood. Anders groans and rolls to his side. <em>Focus, damn you. <em>He struggles to his feet and breaks into a run. He falls rather than sits down to remove the sword, which results in a new flow of dark blood and a cry of pain. Anders fills himself with every last bit of his magic and pours it all into Gaelen Hawke in a desperate cascade of healing energy. The world grows dim. He lands on one elbow, utterly spent.

Something stirs beside him.

Hawke sits up slowly, blinking into the setting sun. "Now that," he says weakly, "was a dream I won't mind _never_ having again."

Eventually neither of them wants to stay in the qunari camp. Some of the fatally injured qunari have to be put out of their misery, though not all of them allow it. The hornless emissary survives. They bandage him up and Hawke tells him briskly he can keep his life to take his answers back to his people. Every inch the Champion of Kirkwall, he then narrows his eyes and asks: "Will your people come to find me?"

"No."

"You're sure of this?"

"Yes. That ship, as you say, has long sailed. You will not surrender, it seems, even to death."

Hawke looks away to where Anders has slumped against a crate. The qunari follows his glance and frowns, or frowns _more_. "Though I do not understand why you surrender to men."

"He's not _men_," Hawke says absently. "And for the record, it's not one Ander, two Anders either, it's just Anders."

The wounded man gives him a final long, hard stare. "You remind me of someone," he growls. "Only you are that much worse. _Panahedan, basalit-an._ We will not meet again."

They leave the qunari at the campsite and set off to make their own further away in a narrow forest clearing. A small fire made with mudane means blooms into existence, since the only mage present doesn't have a drop of magic left. Anders watches the little flames dance ever higher, outlining the shadows of the trees standing protectively around them.

A warm hand lands on his shoulder. "How are you holding up?" Gaelen asks. He has brought a thick blanket for the night, which he wraps around the both of them.

"I'm fine now," Anders replies. "You?"

"Dead tired," Hawke admits. "And proud."

"What?"

"Because whatever you believe yourself to be, you still hate for things to be broken, be they people or pets or objects. Though I'm not sure where I fit in."

"The first two?" Anders suggests lightly.

He sighs, suddenly more serious. "But you're right. Even with all... all I have done. And I want to see you hurt least of all, even though I've made quite the mess of that. "

Hawke slips his deft fingers under the mage's shirt and gently touches his chest. "That's you in there. You're not altogether stripped of who you are, and I'm not letting go. And if that hurts... well, it's this thing I do."

They sit quietly for a while. Through his exhaustion Anders feels strangely peaceful. If he'd hear any 'voices' now, the only one would probably be a dwarven one, rough yet pleasant. It would say something eloquent along the lines of 'Well done, Blondie. Though I swear, if you, or Justice, or Vengeance _did_ screw up, I'd have happily kicked all of you in the ass till you were coughing bootlaces.'

_Maker, fancy having an imaginary Varric inside your head_. Anders shakes his head and smiles. The movement startles Hawke behind him; the Champion of Kirkwall swears as he hits his head against the tree at his back. "Ow. What?"

"Nothing. Sorry, I'll take care of that in the morning."

Gaelen Hawke rests his weary, bruised head against the tree. "You know what you need?"

"I don't dare ask."

"A cat. We need to get you a cat."

"Well, you know what the Wardens thought of that. Makes me soft."

"You could do with some softening."

Anders leans back and closes his eyes, still smiling.


End file.
